C.W. Nevius of SFGate.com has a really good article on the uproar over gay marriages and how they supposedly threaten to undermine the “traditional definition of marriage” in this country. President Bush is quoted as saying “Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society,“ and yet if you take a good look at the history of marriage it’s clear that such serverances have been many and varied throughout history.
Nevius points out that back during the early history of America (1700-1800s) a married woman gave up many of the “rights” she enjoyed as a single person upon taking her vows. She could no longer own property or sign contracts and any money earned outside of the home had to be turned over to her husband. On the plus side, she didn’t have to pay taxes. In many ways a married woman was the property of her husband and this didn’t change until the the latter-half of the 19th Century, but change it did. Mixed race marriages weren’t legal in any state until California changed their laws in 1948 and it was 19 years more before the Supreme Court made it nation-wide. In many states it was still illegal for mixed race couples to marry until the year I was born (1967), but change it did. More interesting still is what you get when you look closely at just what the Bible suggests about marriage:
Marriage’s lineage a bit convoluted
“It is really much more complex in religious perspective than you might think,‘’ says Tolbert, the George Atkinson Professor for Biblical Studies at the Pacific School of Religion. “What the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) suggests as a general model for marriage is polygamy. You look at someone like Solomon who had 200 wives and 600-and-some concubines. Or Abraham, who had his first child by his wife’s slave. It sounds as if it was quite normal.‘’
Tolbert, who is also the executive director for the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry, points out that marriage didn’t even become a sacrament of the church “until the 12th century. For the first 1,200 years (A.D.) in Europe there were civil unions by town or village government.‘’
Nor does the New Testament offer much help. In fact, by some selective readings it sounds as if the Bible has mixed views of marriage. As Tolbert says, Jesus says very little about marriage, and both he and Paul were single men. And Paul, at least, recommended chastity.
“Marriage is not a sin,‘’ says Paul in First Corinthians, “but it is better to be unmarried.‘’
“The Bible is an incredibly important sacred icon in our culture,‘’ says Tolbert. “But I just think a lot of people don’t read it.‘’
That not many people read the Bible they supposedly follow is obvious. I issued a challenge awhile back for anyone to list a single valid reason that wasn’t religious in nature as to why gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry and never got anyone to take me up on that challenge. That challenge still stands.
Posted on 03/26/2004 at 07:08 AM 
Posted on 06/30/2004 at 09:53 AM 
Oh geez, not the “belief of atheism” crap again…
Suppose I should climb into this argument as well.
I think it’s pretty funny that you start off with a naturalistic argument (our bodies were designed specifically for male-female relationships) and then argue against a naturalistic counter-point (some animals engage in homosexual sex).
So basically your non-Biblical argument boils down to the idea that nature designed us for male-female relationships so that’s what we should limit ourselves to. Well, OK, but that begs the following question: Are you faithful to your wife/girlfriend? If you are, then you’re making a conscious choice to override how nature designed you to behave. Namely, to have sex with as many women as you can. By choosing to remain monogamous you are violating the natural order. If it’s OK to violate the natural order for the sake of fidelity then why is it not OK to violate the natural order to marry someone of the same sex?
This is true to an extent, but trying to say that it’s same sort of faith that goes into believing in your invisible superfriend is comparing apples to oranges.
The faith I have that when I drop a ball it will fall to the ground comes from innumerable past experiences where when I dropped a ball it fell to the ground. In short, I have good reason to have faith in the idea the ball will fall when I drop it and I can demonstrate the truth of the assertion that dropping the ball will always result in it falling to the ground to anyone quite easily. Certainly it’s still possible that some day I will drop the ball and it won’t fall, but that would require something to seriously go wrong with the fundamental laws of the universe, so while there’s an element of faith involved in assuming that it always will fall I’ve got no good reason not to hold that faith.
You can’t necessarily make the same statements about god.
Atheism is not a belief you can have faith in. It’s an absence of belief in the existence of gods. How do you have faith in the absence of belief?
*SQUAWK! ENTERING PARROT MODE! SQUAWK! COMMENCE REPEATING TIRED CLICHES FROM FLASH CARD #348 SQUAWK!*
I mean, yeah, we’ve heard that before. Next.
I dunno, probably because these prophetic messages Christians like to keep claiming have been proven to take place haven’t actually been proven to have taken place? That might have something to do with it.
It’s a nice assertion, but difficult to prove. Man has believed in all manner of different gods throughout time. Sometimes one, sometimes many, some faded away, others still haunt our fevered imaginations. Mankind has believed in all manner of fictional things throughout history. Dragons, fairies, sea monsters, giants, unicorns, trolls, bogeymen, Santa Claus, aliens with ass fetishes. This doesn’t really prove anything.